I caught flak over my piece last month about UNCW’s creative writing department for not mentioning one of its most beloved faculty members: associate professor Wendy Brenner.

My feeble excuse: Brenner hasn’t had a book come out recently. Algonquin released her short story collection “Phone Calls from the Dead” in 2001, while “Large Animals in Everyday Life” came out in 1996.

So, it’s nice to report Brenner has a new short piece in the fall issue (No. 82) of The Oxford American, the Southern-themed literary magazine.

Brenner’s essay is called “Telegram,” and it covers a remarkable document: The 26-foot-long Western Union telegram sent to Olympic runner Jim Beatty in 1956, when he was a junior at UNC-Chapel Hill when he was about to depart for the U.S. Olympic trials in Los Angeles. More than 1,200 people, including the mayor of Charlotte and his track coach, signed to wish him well.

Beatty didn’t make the U.S. team that year, but he did in 1960. His mriacle year came in 1962, though, when he set three world records and became the first runner to break the 4-minute mile on an indoor track. At one point, Beatty held records in the 1,500-meter, 3,000- meter, 5,000-meter, one-mile and three-mile events.

Beatty’s son, Tully Beatty (a former MFA student of Brenner’s), lives in Wilmington, and he still has the telegram.

About This Blog

This is an emporium for all things literary: occasional book reviews, local book news, items about authors (mostly from the Cape Fear area but occasional visitors) and miscellaneous rants.

The usual author is Ben Steelman, feature writer and book columnist for the Star-News. He’s that shaggy, slightly smelly character you spot lurking in the back aisles of your local bookstore. Physically, he has more than a passing resemblance to Ignatius J. Reilly, hero of John Kennedy Toole’s “A Confederacy of Dunces” — some observers have noted other parallels as well.